Book Review by Guest Author Shaun Anthony McMichael
When a Mean Girl’s body is found outside the infamous town trailer park, a group of the park’s teens band together to find some answers before one of them gets pinned with the blame. Wallflower Debbie Boyle serves as the main sleuth who must navigate an over-bearing mother, an urban legend, feelings of rejection, and a network of ruined mines in her own backyard. Could it be Beth—protective, loyal, and suddenly, mysteriously mute? Is it Ryan, the spurned lover? Is it Jimmy, the drunk’s son with a poor-boy chip on his shoulder? What about Wanda, the caustic, murder-podcast-obsessed cynic? But why does it have to be anyone from the park? What about the creepy rich kid who’s been posting nude images and prowling around the trailer park’s graveyard? The specters of Washington serial killers provide a haunting backdrop for the action, along with the pasts of the people and the place at this story’s core.
Erica Sage’s characters and Washingtonian sensibilities create an atmosphere where the wicked plot of DEAD THINGS can spread its tantalizing fingers. In addition to ‘who-done-it?’ DEAD THINGS asks who’s telling the story, who gets believed, and who gets blamed. It’s a testament to Sage’s character building that a reader is just as excited to find out who the narrator is as they are to identify the killer (or killers!). And beneath the dead things, the labyrinthine mines, the dark histories of Washington labor loss, class prejudice, and cynicism, there’s the teen characters’ very human need to belong and be believed.
DEAD THINGS is both intellectually sharp and an absolute delight. Here’s a description of the school popular girls through Wanda’s sardonic POV: “They all looked the same, that group of girls. Long light brown hair, make-up—colored faces, round stuffed-animal eyes. They didn’t stand out. They blended. They blurred. They smeared like a possum hit by a semi.” But Sage’s punchy chapters, apropos chapter titles, sense of style and humor are only the beginning. Her seamless POV transitions keep the narrative fresh as characters pass the protagonist baton. And intriguingly, Sage’s metafictional elements refract back at a reader as they jump too quickly to conclusions, blame the wrong people, and snag on the traps Sage sets amid the salal, sword fern, and adolescent angst.
“Creating drama was unnecessary. Real life held us captive enough,” Sage’s narrator writes. No vampires or werewolves needed, though allusions to the creepiest parts of “Little Red Riding Hood” and other classics, define this must-read as literary YA at its finest.
DEAD THINGS will be available September 25th, 2026. Order it here.
Shaun Anthony McMichael is the Pushcart-nominated author of 125 published pieces of poetry and prose, including the novel WHISTLE PUNK FALLS (Street Legal Cinema, September 2026); THE WILD FAMILIAR short stories (Cowboy Jamboree Press, 2024); and the poetry collection JACK OF ALL…(New Meridian Arts, 2024). Since 2007, he has taught writing to students from around the world, in classrooms, juvenile detention halls, mental health treatment centers, and homeless youth drop-ins. He lives in Seattle with his family. In addition to teaching English to immigrants and refugees at a public high school, he hosts an annual literary arts reading series, Shadow Work Writers. Visit him at shaunanthonymcmichael.com.